eBay neg feedback? Just exactly how does this work now?

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

This joker gave it a nice try but is busted. He stole the picture from my website along with most of the description. He's now making "reproductions" of my card.

I have one of those internal ebay contacts who has been told. The auction should(?) get pulled, but my question is:

The seller has 10 for sale BIN for $3.49. Can I and a few friends buy one and give him several negative feedbacks without retaliation?

Here is the auction: http://tinyurl.com/3ksnqw

Here is my website page: http://titanicitems.com/cards1.htm


Thanks for any advice.

Kevin

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www.AlteredCards.com - in-depth education on advanced card doctoring techniques & detection with detailed examples

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Posted By: G. Maines

Are images on the internet not considered in the public domain?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

eBay sellers can't give buyers negative feedback. They can give either positive or none.

Keven holds no legal rights to the card image, but does to his description. He would have fair complaint if someone plagiarized his writing, especially if they profited from it. I don't know, but eBay may stop an auction if there wholesale lifting of someone else's text. Personally, I don't think giving a negative this way is the way to go about a plagiarism complaint.

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Posted By: Anthony N.

I found a guy using an image I shot on his ebay listing. Reported it right away and they auction got pulled.
Just because an image is on the internet does not mean it can be stolen and used in the public domain. Copyrights still hold no matter where the image is reproduced.

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Posted By: Marty

I had eBay tell me that since a card that I owned was on my web site, that anyone could use it. I was also told that if I was the high bidder and the seller complained that I was interferring with his auction, I could be booted.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

You don't own a Topps, T206 or Old Judge's design/image by posting an example you own on your website. The card's graphics are not yours to own.

If an eBay seller is deceptively using the image of a card he doesn't own, that would be considered deceptive advertising-- and eBay has pulled auctions due to that.

There is much copyright protected images on eBay, so it is incorrect to say anything posted on a website is public domain. One could get into trouble if he worked under that belief.

Whether it is ethical or good manners to steal someone's Peck & Snyder image is a legitimate discussion, but likely will have little to do with copyright issues.

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

David,

Not sure that is completely accurate. Copyright protection expires after a certain period of time. So therefore if I have the only known image of a 19th century team or player, I believe I can prevent someone from using either MY photograph of that image or a photograph taken by someone else under terms restricting its use. In fact that happened to me on eBay. The Just So Young I own to my knowledge is unique. There are two photographs of it, one taken by me and one by Stephen Wong for use in his book "Smithsonian Baseball". Neither may be used by a third party to make reproductions for commercial gain. Yet that is what happened. Someone was selling on eBay reproductions of the card. I notified him that he could not do it and he pulled the auction. My demand to pull it was not based on ethics or manners but the law; he had no legal right to do was he was doing.

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Posted By: Sean C

You don't own the right to the image of the card per se, but you own the right to the .jpg image file that you created (the scan, the picture, etc.). If someone copies your image file and attempts to use it, they are in violation, and eBay will pull the auction.

Easiest way to deal with image thieves; watermark your images with your store's logo or something similar. I've been doing for years now, and haven't lost any bidders or $ due to it.

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Posted By: PAS

What Does Copyright Protect?


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What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section "What Works Are Protected."

Not sure in your example, Corey, why a photograph of a baseball card would be considered an "original work of authorship" but I am not an intellectual property lawyer.

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

The seller did the right thing and ended the auction on his own. He got just a bit snarky by reminding me I did not own the rights to the picture. I do own the rights to the .JPG and according to Peter's description the card was scanned, cropped an arranged in such a way it could be considered a work or expression of art. Then again I may be stretching it. In reality all the guy had to do was ask.

Thanks for all the input.

Kevin

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www.AlteredCards.com - in-depth education on advanced card doctoring techniques & detection with detailed examples

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Peter,

It's been a while! Good to hear from you again.

I'm not an intellectural property attorney either but what I described is my understanding of how it works. What is original is the precise way I photographed the image. Had instead the replica card been made from a photograph taken from another source over which I had no rights (e.g., a photograph taken by the person from whom I bought the card), then in that instance I would not have any grounds to object to the card being sold on eBay.

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Posted By: PAS

So Corey are you suggesting I could copyright my scan of my T206 Cobb, for which I chose a particular size, resolution, background, etc.? Again I don't know but it strikes me as unlikely that that would be considered an original "work" such that anyone who used it would be guilty of copyright infringement.

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Peter,

To answer your question, yes.

If you choose to take your own image of your T206 Cobb, however skillfully or clumsily you might do it, because the original copyright has expired, I believe you could copyright your unique image. And having done so, I believe you could require someone to first obtain your permission before using it to manufacture replica cards.

Think for a moment of the consequences of the contrary. After a 3-year investigation, I uncover a never-before-seen 19th century daguerreotype baseball image. Abraham Lincoln, on his campaign stop to New York in 1860, poses with Jim Creighton. Whatever copyright that image might have had has long since expired. For $10,000 consideration, I grant someone a license to reproduce it for his about-to-released book on 19th century baseball. That person hires a world-renowed photographer to come to my house to photograph it so as to precisely capture every nuance of the image. Being a dauguerreotype, seventeen takes over 5 hours are required to adequately capture the image. Madison Avenue's top advertising firm is then hired to market the book, and they use that image to highlight the marketing campaign. So what happens? One day after the book is released someone buys a copy and from it makes a reproduction of the image. He then takes out a full-page ad in the New York Times offering to sell 8x10 prints of the image for 50% of the list price of the book. Don't you think either I or the person to whom I granted a license to photograph the image would legally be able to force the person selling the reproductions to withdraw them from the market?

So if I'm correct and the person selling the reproductions could be legally forced to withdraw them from the market, I believe those same legal principles would also apply to your T206 Cobb.

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Posted By: PAS

My general understanding is that there has to be some element of ORIGINALITY/artistic expression in order to copyright something. Not sure a photograph whose claim to fame is that it accurately reproduces something else qualifies, but then again I suppose it wouldn't take much to claim that there was something original about the photograph, e.g. the way it was composed etc.